E-scooter incident occurred near Spanish Steps in Rome.

A 15-year-old boy on an electric scooter knocked down a woman in Rome's Piazza di Spagna on 7 June, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

The 48-year-old woman, who suffered mild injuries, was taken to hospital by ambulance, according to ANSA.

The incident came the day after Rome mayor Virginia Raggi launched a fleet belonging to one of Rome's four e-scooter rental companies, in Piazza di Spagna.

The news comes amid increasing cases of electric scooters being thrown on the ground or abandoned in a careless manner in parking spaces or on pavements.

• Electric scooter sharing takes off in Italy

In recent days it is also not unusual to see younger e-scooter users carrying passengers - which is prohibited - in the centre of Rome.

On 7 June the fire brigade had to remove an e-scooter stuck on a wall overlooking Viale del Muro Torto after it was launched from a height from Villa Borghese park.

There are currently 4,000 rental electric scooters in Rome, operated by four companies - Bird, Dott, Helbiz and Lime - but this number could rise to 16,000.

The e-scooters, which come with their own rules, have otherwise got off to a positive start in Rome, with users clocking up more than 20,000 km in under a week, as reported by Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

• Rome mayor urges Romans to respect bike sharing

Speaking at an e-scooter launch in recent days, Mayor Raggi said: "Before covid-19 we thought of the scooter as a means exclusively for tourists but now that tourism is stopped temporarily, Romans have discovered this service that is sustainable, practical and affordable for everyone."

In 2019 Uber launched a bike-sharing service in the capital, a year after other free-floating bike schemes Gobee and Obike bailed out of Europe, after going bankrupt and suffering widespread vandalism, including in Rome where many of the bicycles were rendered unusable or were thrown off bridges into the river Tiber.

Photo Roma fa Schifo